54 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[April, 1904. 



graph is a good example, are generally of a uniform 

 brown tint. Many of the species have curious knotty 

 protuberances, or even prickles, upon their bodies and 

 legs, this, of course, adding much to the stick-like aspect 



winged Phasmld, showing two portions into which each win^^ is divided. 



of the insect. After examining a dried specimen of a 

 "stick" Phasmid, one does not need the assurance of 

 foreign collectors to believe that these creatures are prac- 

 tically invisible when at home among the branches of 

 their native shrubs. 



Winded Phasmid. at rest among grass blades. 



Other Phasmidce — fairy-like creatures with exquisitely 

 coloured wings — resemble grass rather than twigs when 

 at rest. Their bodies, legs, antennae, indeed every part 

 of them, with the exception of certain portions of the 

 wing area, is green. Their first pair of wings is rudi- 

 mentary ; but their hind wings are ample, gauzy, and 

 fan-like in their manner of folding. A narrow strip at 

 the anterior margin of each wing is thickened and green 

 in colour, contrasting strangely with the gauzy area, 

 which is usually bright pink. Under this narrow cover, 

 the whole of the bright, flimsy portion of the wing is 

 packed away when the insect comes to rest. And so 

 closely are the wings folded that the casual observer 

 imagines the creature to be apterous. It is, indeed, the 

 exact counterpart, of a crumpled or slightly-thickened 

 grass blade, while its legs and antenna;- are too slender to 

 attract much notice. 



Phyllium sp. Female. Ceylon. 



Perhaps the most remarkable genus of the Phinmid<r 

 is PhyUiuni, whose members — unlike the majority of their 

 allies, which we have seen to be slender and lengthened 

 — have the body and legs flattened into leaf- like plates. 

 In some instances this design of leaf resemblance is 

 carried out with amazing accuracy and attention to 

 detail. Every portion of the insect seems modified to the 

 one end. Its body is flat and leaf-like ; its wings and 

 wing cases (where present) look like leaves; while even 

 its legs are flattened and fitted with leaf-like appendages. 

 To crown all, the colour of these insects, when alive, is the 

 brightest and freshest of vegetable greens; so that, when 

 crawling among herbaceous foliage, a species of PhyUiiim 

 is, to all appearances, not an insect at all, but just a 

 moving mass of leaves. 



Certain species of the Mcmhracidtc, which are ratlier 

 small, frog- hopper-like insects, have a most curious 

 thorn-like or knot-like appearance. This is gained by an 

 unusual de\elopment of the pronotum, which is produced 

 behind into a long process, or, it may be, into a kind of 

 shield. In the case of Ltnbonia spinosa, from Brazil, this 



